The Electricity Hike Opens a Bigger Question About What J&K Lost After 2019

The controversy over the latest electricity tariff hike in Jammu and Kashmir has produced a question that goes far beyond the electricity bill: who actually takes the important decisions affecting the people of Jammu and Kashmir?

The answer becomes particularly significant when one looks at the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC).

Before the reorganization of Jammu and Kashmir, the erstwhile State had its own electricity regulatory framework. Following the constitutional changes of 2019 and the reorganization of the State into the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, that institutional arrangement changed.

On June 18, 2020, the Central Government constituted the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission for the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh under Section 83 of the Electricity Act, 2003.

JERC is therefore not a department of the elected Jammu and Kashmir Government. It is a statutory regulatory body constituted under the Central electricity-law framework.

That distinction matters today because the latest average 6.83 per cent electricity tariff increase has become a major political controversy in Jammu and Kashmir.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has defended the increase as a compulsion arising from the financial condition of the power sector. Political parties have protested against it, while consumers are preparing to pay more from September 1.

But the deeper question is this: how much decision-making power does an elected government in Jammu and Kashmir actually possess today compared with the powers available to the government of the erstwhile State?

This is where the debate over Article 370 should be understood beyond slogans.

Before August 2019, Jammu and Kashmir had its own Constitution and a substantially different constitutional relationship with the Union. Article 35A, operating through Article 370, enabled the erstwhile State to define permanent residents and provide them special rights in areas including land ownership and public employment.

Those arrangements disappeared with the constitutional changes of August 2019.

The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act, 2019 then divided the erstwhile State into two Union Territories: Jammu and Kashmir, with a Legislative Assembly, and Ladakh, without one.

This was not merely a change of administrative boundaries.

It changed the constitutional and political position of the region.

The former State had an elected State Government functioning within the federal structure applicable to States. Jammu and Kashmir today is a Union Territory with a Legislative Assembly, while important subjects including public order and police remain outside the Assembly’s control.

The Legislative Council, which had existed as the upper house of the former State legislature, was also abolished.

For the people of Jammu and Kashmir, therefore, one of the biggest changes after 2019 was the loss of a larger sphere of constitutional and legislative autonomy that had distinguished the former State from most other parts of India.

The land question provides another concrete example.

Under the earlier framework, the permanent-resident system and associated laws restricted the acquisition of immovable property by non-residents. After 2019, the Centre amended the land laws and removed key references to permanent residents. The changes opened the way for people from outside Jammu and Kashmir to purchase land, subject to the applicable laws and categories.

The Government defended these changes as necessary for investment, development and integration.

Critics, however, viewed them differently, arguing that the earlier framework gave the people of the former State a degree of protection over land ownership and settlement which was subsequently removed.

The same transformation occurred in public employment.

The old permanent-resident framework was replaced by domicile rules. The new rules extended eligibility in government employment to categories that were not covered by the former permanent-resident system.

Supporters of the change describe it as greater equality and integration.

Critics see it as the removal of a protective employment framework that had existed for generations.

Whatever one’s political position, the legal framework governing these matters undeniably changed after 2019.

And this brings us back to electricity.

When Farooq Abdullah asks, “Till when will you beg before New Delhi?” and questions why Jammu and Kashmir continues to depend on the Centre while demanding restoration of Article 370, he is not merely talking about an electricity tariff.

He is raising the larger question of political and financial dependence.

There is, however, another side to the argument.

Jammu and Kashmir has historically depended heavily on financial assistance from the Union Government, and the power sector itself has accumulated substantial losses. JPDCL and KPDCL cannot simply be expected to provide electricity indefinitely without addressing the gap between the cost of power and revenue collected from consumers.

That is the government’s argument.

But financial dependence and political autonomy are not necessarily the same thing.

A State can receive financial assistance from the Centre and still possess substantially greater legislative and administrative powers than a Union Territory.

That distinction is at the heart of the present debate.

The JERC example is important because it shows how the institutional architecture changed.

The question is not whether JERC is legally entitled to regulate electricity tariffs. It is.

The question is why the regulatory architecture changed from a State-level framework to a Joint Commission constituted by the Central Government after Jammu and Kashmir became a Union Territory.

That change was part of the post-2019 constitutional and administrative restructuring.

There is another important fact that should not be forgotten.

The Supreme Court, while upholding the constitutional changes in December 2023, directed that steps be taken for restoration of statehood at the earliest and as soon as possible. Jammu and Kashmir subsequently got an elected government again.

But an elected government is not the same thing as a State government.

That distinction is at the heart of the present debate.

People may disagree about whether Article 370 was good or bad. They may disagree about whether the post-2019 changes have produced greater investment, development and integration. They may also disagree about whether the former State’s special constitutional position should ever return.

But there should be no disagreement about one basic fact: the people of Jammu and Kashmir lost a substantial measure of their former constitutional autonomy in 2019.

They lost the separate State Constitution.

They lost statehood.

They lost the Legislative Council.

They lost the former permanent-resident framework and the constitutional protection through which special rights over land and public employment had been structured.

They lost control of police and public order to the Union Territory administration rather than the elected government.

And institutions that previously functioned within the State’s own legal framework were subsequently brought under the Union Territory and Central legal architecture.

The electricity tariff dispute has therefore accidentally opened a much bigger window.

The real debate is not simply whether electricity should cost ₹2.45, ₹4.20 or ₹4.60 a unit.

It is about who has the authority to make decisions that directly affect the lives of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

Autonomy does not necessarily mean separation.

Dependence does not necessarily mean weakness.

But democratic accountability becomes meaningful only when people know clearly who possesses the power to decide, who can be questioned for that decision and who can ultimately be held responsible by the electorate.

Six years after 2019, that question deserves a much more serious public debate in Jammu and Kashmir.

The electricity bill may be arriving at the doorstep of an ordinary household, but the political question behind it is much larger:

Who decides for Jammu and Kashmir?

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